Johnny Flynn – Sweet William EP
I’m not sure what’s happened to his Sussex Wit, because it’s very much business as usual for Mr. Flynn on his new EP. It seems a little churlish to complain when business as usual produces songs as lovely as this, but nevertheless this seems a little like treading water.
More accurately, what it seems like is a few songs which were left behind from the body of work which resulted in A Larum last year. I know the bands are actually all linked one way or another, but The Mountain is Burning does sound like the missing link between Mumford & Sons and Noah & the Whale – a little gentler than the former and a little more anthemic than the latter. It’s also, I tempted to say, an unfortunately premature high point for the EP.
Trains is pretty nice, but Sweet William has a profoundly irritating falsetto vocal inflection in the chorus and frankly Drum is fairly forgettable, despite some rather lovely trumpet. All in all though this feels like a thoroughly unnecessary EP designed to keep us all ticking over and his name on the tip of the general tongue while the second album is being hatched. Don’t get me wrong, it’s good, and the first two songs in particular are really rather nice, but I really don’t think it moves anything on much and I’m left thinking ‘Well, okay, that’s nice, but what are you really doing next?’
Johnny Flynn – The Mountain is Burning
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There are some nice flourishes on that song, but on the whole it’s not going anywhere, and doesn’t seem to be in any rush to get there.
The whole EP’s a bit like that, to be honest. It’s nice, but no more than that.
Bugger the pair of you. This is the sort of song that makes a mixtape. It is lyrical and lovely.
This might just about get onto the bit at the end of the mixtape where you’ve got about forty-seconds of tape left and you want to put a bit of filler on there.
Maybe..
Nah, Dylan, I like it more than that. This is definitely the highpoint of the EP and I do think it’s a very good song, just a lack of purpose about it.
Yeah that’s fair enough.
My comment was more about pulling Ben’s leg than my opinion of the song!
Nice change of pace to balance the tape.
@Dylan – but the challenge is to find the sub-40 second song to finish off the side of the tape!!
I really like this actually. You lot are being over critical.
“The cause and effect never met” is a brilliant line. There aren’t a lot of song-writers that make me ponder on certain lines. Vagueness is a virtue in song-writing. Lovely.
And it’s not meant to “go” anywhere… it’s music. It takes you somewhere.
Yeah, but I find the EP in general just meanders about – like it’s a bit lost. I guess that could be a good thing, but in this case it doesn’t feel like one.
i love the whole ep. i especially like drum, which is being completely written off in this review.
Ah well. Everyone has different opinons, and I don’t think this is bad at all, just don’t find it all that exciting.